Punching a Raw Chicken Filled With Walnuts

And other triumphs of film sound design.

This video from Film Radar explains the magic of movie sound design using Fight Club and other movies. David Fincher’s film is a masterwork of sound, especially when it comes to the visceral fight scenes. Sound designers Ren Klyce and Richard Hymns weren’t content to use the usual Hollywood punching sound effects for the brutal brawls; they weren’t realistic enough. Instead, they created better punching sounds from some pretty strange combinations, such as hitting raw chickens stuffed with walnuts.

They earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Editing for their efforts (they lost to The Matrix). How many chickens full of walnuts does a person have to punch to get an Oscar around here?